Re: Off topic: Latin plurals and apostrophes in plurals.

["Michael Edwards" mje@xxxxxxxx]

[George H. Scithers.:]

>Back in the late 1950s (not 1950's, because the shortened form
>would then be '50's, which is silly),

   Not to mention that a possessive is not involved here.
   I guess the only occasion where an apostrophe might be justified in a
plural is where confusion could otherwise result, as in naming letters: "minding
one's P's and Q's", or "dotting I's and crossing T's". If you used upper-case
letters you might be able to do away with the apostrophes, and I would probably
do so - but I think if you kept your p's, q's, i's, and t's in lower-case, the
apostrophes would seem necessary for clarity.


>the professors in the
>Stanford Radioscience Lab -- just for the fun of it, of course --
>not only spoke of "those data" but also used the fake-Latin
>plurals "Xeroces" and "Kleenices."

   I believe Unix enthusiasts refer to "Unices", meaning varieties of Unix;
and it appears they (rather anomalously) run them on "boxen" (Unix boxen, etc.).
I think the mock plural "VAXen" is in use, too.
   (I got these from "The New Hacker's Dictionary", also available on the
Internet as "The Jargon File", which is quite amusing and insightful into
computer culture.)

             Regards,
             Michael Edwards.